Yesterday I had my roundup all written and when I hit "Publish" the blog editor decided to just instead refresh and wipe half my post. Sorry for the delay--here you go.

Stories, news, and other notable items from the past week:

Two star links:

• Though this article mentions some SEO rockstars (Dave Naylor, Neil Patel, Aaron Wall, Eric Ward, Dave Dellanave, Jeremy Schoemaker), it provides an unbalanced look at SEO, choosing to focus more on black hat. It even goes so far to say "SEOs may have a less-defined code of business ethics than most, but it's a code nonetheless." Sheesh, what's with journalists trying to "sexy" up our industry and portray us as morally conflicted, enigmatic hucksters? It's not like we traverse through a grid of laser sensors in order to stuff some keywords into a title tag or something. A lot of us are marketers, not bandits.

Three star links:

• A real life Cletus the Slackjawed Yokel decided that the best way to install a satellite TV system in his house was to shoot some holes at his walls and inadvertently kill his wife. This story reminds me of that episode of The Simpsons where Homer gets a gun and does dumb stuff like shoot the TV to change the channel and literally shoot the lights out when he leaves a room. (I tried to find a clip, but YouTube's search function is useless.)
• Amusingly reported on Yahoo! News, apparently Microsoft's brand power has steadily declined over the past 4 years. Microsoft's brand is weakening? That's unpossible! (Hmm, I wonder how many Simpsons references I can squeeze into this post...)
• The Telegraph has a waitress's perspective on working at an upscale restaurant in New York. She provides accounts of serving (literally) big-headed celebrities, gender biases, and personality shifts in order to cater to various patrons. It's an interesting read and an intriguing glimpse into the world of upscale dining.
• Science is really starting to blow my mind. Wired reports that scientists are working on regenerating teeth. Will this mark the end of teeth bling and grillz as we know it? Poor Flava Flav!
• Ken Jones tells us why the SEO industry is like high school. His list is amusing, but how about some real-life examples, Ken? ;)
• Search Engine Land's article about Microsoft planning on paying users $1 million to exclusively use their products was my favorite industry-related April Fool's joke. Apparently quite a few people fell for it--nice job, Danny.
• Also from the Telegraph comes the 101 most useful websites. Google graced the top of the list at #1, while SEOmoz barely missed cracking the top 101. (We came in at #102. Or so I tell myself.)
• SEOBook released a new tool, Search Engine Ranking Checking for Firefox. (SEOmoz also has a Rank Checker tool.)
• Some journalists transitioned to becoming bloggers...and found that they liked it.
• The New Work City site's design is really unique and does a great job of capturing your attention.

Four star links:

• Postcards From Yo Momma has had me and Jeff in stitches ever since I chanced upon it earlier this week. The premise is simple: Does your mom email you? If so, send them to this site and they'll post Mom's messages for the Internet world's reading pleasure. One of my favorites is this one about Facebook. Oh, and "Look who finally learned the computer" practically killed me.
• Francis Marketing offers strategies and tips for optimizing PDFs. It's a good resource and has some good pointers--definitely a must-read for those of you who offer a lot of content in PDF on your sites.
• Forget about 50 ways to leave your lover--here are 50 ways to get free advertising for your startup. If you have a new website and need inspiration on how to promote it, check out this list for some handy suggestions.
• Paul Graham takes us through an evolution of disagreeing, from level 0 (e.g., "You're a douche wad") to the zenith ("Your main point is X, but it is wrong for Y reasons..."). FYI: Level -5 Disagreements are YouTube comments (i.e., "your [sic] gay." "no, uR gay!")

Five star links:

• This guy is a bonafide Mugger Whisperer--not only does he give his mugger his money, he also gives the kid his coat because it was cold outside, and he takes the troubled teen to dinner to get to know the kid better. How many people do you know who would have done the same?
• Covario announced the results of their several month-long study of 300 major brands' data and found "statistically significant patterns linking certain SEO practices to predictable improvements in organic search rankings..." Also from the study are these interesting findings:

-- Google is 15 times as sensitive to technical issues as Yahoo, and twice as sensitive as compared to MSN
-- Google is 50 percent more sensitive to link strategy than MSN
-- Google is approximately 25 percent less sensitive to content issues than the other engines.

YOUmoz entries:

• Enterprise SEO: 5 Ways to Stay Sane. Wrttnwrd promises 5 but actually gives us 8 tips on how to maintain your sanity when working with enterprise clients.
• SEO for HTTPS. Franz Enzenhofer provides some tips on how to optimize a site that has a lot of content within a secure protocol.
• How to Go from Biz to Buzz. Jkellygarrett focuses on "how Biz and Buzz work in conjunction to provide the client a more rounded, full-service experience than either one alone could provide."
• How Social Media Optimisation Leads to Engagement with Your Audience. Jaamit gives a basic introduction of social media and how it's beneficial to your Internet marketing campaign.
• Page Layout and SEO. SEO Articles and Tip reminds us not to overlook our site's layout, URL structures, and navigation.
• The Race to PR Supreme. Planet Berry LLC says that the secret to great Page Rank is content.

Best of YOUmoz:

• Ann Smarty's Creative RSS Button - Could It Work? post talked about how RSS buttons often get hidden or overlooked on a page, and she provided some examples of creative RSS buttons that stand out more and grab the user's attention. Her post was so good that we promoted it to the main blog--great job, Ann!
• Thetjo gets technical and teaches us about Removing ?PHPSESSID from a URL. His post was very well received. Keep those techy submissions coming!

New events added to the Events Calendar:

• Pay Per Click Summit in San Francisco, CA May 19-20, 2008

New additions to the SEOmoz Marketplace:
Featured job postings:

• Reputation management guru for LocalSEO Guide in Pleasanton, CA
• SEO consultant for Base One Search in Teddington, Middlesex (Greater London), UK
• Affiliate/search marketing manager for Onward Search in Greater New York City, NY
• Product manager, organic search, and Internet marketing coordinator for onTargetjobs in Denver, CO
• Account director for Spur Digital in Houston, TX

Featured companies:

United States/North America:

• Search Engine Genie in Los Angeles, CA
• ThingsThatAreBrown in Seattle, WA (it's an SEOmoz recommended company, too!)
• 3marketeers Advertising in the US, the UK, Japan, and Taiwan
• Proceed Innovative in Illinois
• PayPal in San Jose, CA
• Magnet Search Marketing in Canada
• SEO Visions in Vancouver, BC, Canada

South America:

• Netic Infoservices in Buenos Aires, Argentina

UK/Europe:

• Comunilab.it in Pisa, Italy

Asia:

• TOPSEO Partners in Bhopal, MP, India
• Eastline Marketing in Lebanon
• SEOMENOT in the Philippines and Singapore
• Westkit Software in Bangkok, Thailand

Featured resumes:

• Tony Adam (whose resume I've featured in a previous Roundup Thursday post) wanted me to let everyone know that he's now looking for employment. Check out his resume if you need to hire an SEO who specializes in infrastructure, networks, and web dev/design.
• PJ Hoberman is a marketing manager who is currently looking for employment. He is experienced in content development, keyword research, link building, PPC, social media marketing, usability, and more.